Hungarian. To what? Tche Drak, to the Mohacs Veszedelem. Ulaszloleft a son, Lajos the Second, born without skin, as it is said,certainly without a head. He, contrary to the advice of all hiswise counsellors,--and amongst them was Batory Stephen, who becameeventually King of Poland--engaged, with twenty-five thousand men,at Mohacs, Soliman the Turk, who had an army of two hundredthousand. Drak! the Magyars were annihilated, King Lajosdisappeared with his heavy horse and armour in a bog. We call thatbattle, which was fought on the 29th of August, 1526, thedestruction of Mohacs, but it was the destruction of Hungary.

Myself. You have twice used the word drak, what is the meaning ofit? Is it Hungarian?

Hungarian. No! it belongs to the mad Wallacks. They are a nationof madmen on the other side of Transylvania. Their country wasformerly a fief of Hungary, like Moldavia, which is inhabited bythe same race, who speak the same language and are equally mad.

Myself. What language do they speak?

Hungarian. A strange mixture of Latin and Sclavonian--theythemselves being a mixed race of Romans and Sclavonians. Trajansent certain legions to form military colonies in Dacia; and thepresent Wallacks and Moldavians are, to a certain extent, thedescendants of the Roman soldiers, who married the women of thecountry. I say to a certain extent, for the Sclavonian elementboth in blood and language seems to prevail.

Myself. And what is drak?

Hungarian. Dragon; which the Wallacks use for "devil." The termis curious, as it shows that the old Romans looked upon the dragonas an infernal being.

Myself. You have been in Wallachia?

Hungarian. I have, and glad I was to get out of it. I hate themad Wallacks.

Myself. Why do you call them mad?

Hungarian. They are always drinking or talking. I never saw aWallachian eating or silent. They talk like madmen, and drink likemadmen. In drinking they use small phials, the contents of whichthey pour down their throats. When I first went amongst them Ithought the whole nation was under a course of physic, but theterrible jabber of their tongues soon undeceived me. Drak was thefirst word I heard on entering Dacia, and the last when I left it.The Moldaves, if possible, drink more, and talk more than theWallachians.

Myself. It is singular enough that the only Moldavian I have knowncould not speak. I suppose he was born dumb.

Hungarian. A Moldavian born dumb! Excuse me, the thing isimpossible,--all Moldavians are born talking! I have known aMoldavian who could not speak, but he was not born dumb. Hismaster, an Armenian, snipped off part of his tongue at Adrianople.He drove him mad with his jabber. He is now in London, where hismaster has a house. I have letters of credit on the house: theclerk paid me money in London, the master was absent; the moneywhich you received for the horse belonged to that house.

Myself. Another word with respect to Hungarian history.

Hungarian. Drak! I wish to say nothing more about Hungarianhistory.

Myself. The Turk, I suppose, after Mohacs, got possession ofHungary?

Hungarian. Not exactly. The Turk, upon the whole, showed greatmoderation; not so the Austrian. Ferdinand the First claimed thecrown of Hungary as being the cousin of Maria, widow of Lajos; hefound too many disposed to support him. His claim, however, wasresisted by Zapolya John, a Hungarian magnate, who caused himselfto be elected king. Hungary was for a long time devastated by warsbetween the partisans of Zapolya and Ferdinand. At last Zapolyacalled in the Turk. Soliman behaved generously to him, and afterhis death befriended his young son, and Isabella his queen;eventually the Turks became masters of Transylvania and the greaterpart of Hungary. They were not bad masters, and had many friendsin Hungary, especially amongst those of the reformed faith, towhich I have myself the honour of belonging; those of the reformedfaith found the Mufti more tolerant than the Pope. Many Hungarianswent with the Turks to the siege of Vienna, whilst Tekeli and hishorsemen guarded Hungary for them. A gallant enterprise that siegeof Vienna, the last great effort of the Turk; it failed, and hespeedily lost Hungary, but he did not sneak from Hungary like afrightened hound. His defence of Buda will not be soon forgotten,where Apty Basha, the governor, died fighting like a lion in thebreach. There's many a Hungarian would prefer Stamboul to Vienna.Why does your Government always send fools to represent it atVienna?

Myself. I have already told you that I cannot say. What became ofTekeli?

Hungarian. When Hungary was lost he retired with the Turks intoTurkey. Count Renoncourt, in his Memoirs, mentions having seen himat Adrianople. The Sultan, in consideration of the services whichhe had rendered to the Moslem in Hungary, made over the revenues ofcertain towns and districts for his subsistence. The count saysthat he always went armed to the teeth, and was always attended bya young female dressed in male attire, who had followed him in hiswars, and had more than once saved his life. His end is wrapped inmystery, I--whose greatest boast, next to being a Hungarian, is tobe of his blood--know nothing of his end.

Myself. Allow me to ask who you are?

Hungarian. Egy szegeny Magyar Nemes ember, a poor Hungariannobleman, son of one yet poorer. I was born in Transylvania, notfar to the west of good Coloscvar. I served some time in theAustrian army as a noble Hussar, but am now equerry to a greatnobleman, to whom I am distantly related. In his service I havetravelled far and wide, buying horses. I have been in Russia andin Turkey, and am now at Horncastle, where I have had thesatisfaction to meet with you, and to buy your horse, which is, intruth, a noble brute.

Myself. For a soldier and equerry you seem to know a great deal ofthe history of your country.

Hungarian. All I know is derived from Florentius of Buda, whom wecall Budai Ferentz. He was professor of Greek and Latin at theReformed College of Debreczen, where I was educated; he wrote awork entitled "Magyar Polgari Lexicon," Lives of Great HungarianCitizens. He was dead before I was born, but I found his book,when I was a child, in the solitary home of my father, which stoodon the confines of a puszta, or wilderness, and that book I used todevour in winter nights when the winds were whistling around thehouse. Oh I how my blood used to glow at the descriptions ofMagyar valour, and likewise of Turkish; for Florentius has alwaysdone justice to the Turk. Many a passage similar to this have Igot by heart; it is connected with a battle on the plain of Rigo,which Hunyadi lost:- "The next day, which was Friday, as the twoarmies were drawn up in battle array, a Magyar hero riding forth,galloped up and down, challenging the Turks to single combat. Thencame out to meet him the son of a renowned bashaw of Asia; rushingupon each other, both broke their lances, but the Magyar hero andhis horse rolled over upon the ground, for the Turks had always thebest horses." O young man of Horncastle! if ever you learnHungarian--and learn it assuredly you will after what I have toldyou--read the book of Florentius of Buda, even if you go to Hungaryto get it, for you will scarcely find it elsewhere, and even therewith difficulty, for the book has been long out of print. Itdescribes the actions of the great men of Hungary down to themiddle of the sixteenth century; and besides being written in thepurest Hungarian, has the merit of having for its author aprofessor of the Reformed College of Debreczen.

Myself. I will go to Hungary rather than not read it. I am gladthat the Turk beat the Magyar. When I used to read the ballads ofSpain I always sided with the Moor against the Christian.

Hungarian. It was a drawn fight after all, for the terrible horseof the Turk presently flung his own master, whereupon the twochampions returned to their respective armies; but in the grandconflict which ensued, the Turks beat the Magyars, pursuing themtill night, and striking them on the necks with their scymetars.The Turk is a noble fellow; I should wish to be a Turk, were I nota Magyar.

Myself. The Turk always keeps his word, I am told.

Hungarian. Which the Christian very seldom does, and even theHungarian does not always. In 1444 Ulaszlo made, at Szeged, peacewith Amurath for ten years, which he swore with an oath to keep,but at the instigation of the Pope Julian he broke it, and inducedhis great captain, Hunyadi John, to share in the perjury. Theconsequence was the battle of Varna, of the 10th of November, inwhich Hunyadi was routed, and Ulaszlo slain. Did you ever hear hisepitaph? it is both solemn and edifying:-

"Halloo!" said the jockey, starting up from a doze in which he hadbeen indulging for the last hour, his head leaning upon his breast,"what is that? That's not high Dutch; I bargained for high Dutch,and I left you speaking high Dutch, as it sounded very much likethe language of horses, as I have been told high Dutch does; but asfor what you are speaking now, whatever you may call it, it soundsmore like the language of another kind of animal. I suppose youwant to insult me, because I was once a dicky-boy."

"Nothing of the kind," said I; "the gentleman was making aquotation in Latin."

"Latin, was it?" said the jockey; "that alters the case. Latin isgenteel, and I have sent my eldest boy to an academy to learn it.Come, let us hear you fire away in Latin," he continued, proceedingto re-light his pipe, which, before going to sleep, he had laid onthe table.

"If you wish to follow the discourse in Latin," said the Hungarian,in very bad English, "I can oblige you; I learned to speak verygood Latin in the college of Debreczen."

"That's more," said I, "than I have done in the colleges where Ihave been; in any little conversation which we may yet have, I wishyou would use German."

"Well," said the jockey, taking a whiff, "make your conversation asshort as possible, whether in Latin or Dutch, for, to tell you thetruth, I am rather tired of merely playing listener."

"You were saying you had been in Russia," said I; "I believe theRussians are part of the Sclavonian race."

Hungarian. Yes, part of the great Sclavonian family; one of themost numerous races in the world. The Russians themselves are verynumerous; would that the Magyars could boast of the fifth part oftheir number!

Myself. What is the number of the Magyars?

Hungarian. Barely four millions. We came a tribe of Tartars intoEurope, and settled down amongst Sclavonians, whom we conquered,but who never coalesced with us. The Austrian at present plays inPannonia the Sclavonian against us, and us against the Sclavonian;but the downfall of the Austrian is at hand; they, like us, are nota numerous people.

Myself. Who will bring about his downfall?

Hungarian. The Russians. The Rysckie Tsar will lead his peopleforth, all the Sclavonians will join him, he will conquer allbefore him.

Myself. Are the Russians good soldiers?

Hungarian. They are stubborn and unflinching to an astonishingdegree, and their fidelity to their Tsar is quite admirable. Seehow the Russians behaved at Plescova, in Livonia, in the old time,against our great Batory Stephen; they defended the place till itwas a heap of rubbish, and mark how they behaved after they hadbeen made prisoners. Stephen offered them two alternatives:- toenter into his service, in which they would have good pay,clothing, and fair treatment; or to be allowed to return to Russia.Without the slightest hesitation they, to a man, chose the latter,though well aware that their beloved Tsar, the cruel IvanBasilowits, would put them all to death, amidst tortures the mosthorrible, for not doing what was impossible--preserving the town.

Myself. You speak Russian?

Hungarian. A little. I was born in the vicinity of a Sclavoniantribe; the servants of our house were Sclavonians, and I earlyacquired something of their language, which differs not much fromthat of Russia; when in that country I quickly understood what wassaid.

Myself. Have the Russians any literature?

Hungarian. Doubtless; but I am not acquainted with it, as I do notread their language; but I know something of their popular tales,to which I used to listen in their izbushkas; a principal personagein these is a creation quite original--called Baba Yaga.

Myself. Who is the Baba Yaga?

Hungarian. A female phantom, who is described as hurrying alongthe puszta, or steppe, in a mortar, pounding with a pestle at atremendous rate, and leaving a long trace on the ground behind herwith her tongue, which is three yards long, and with which sheseizes any men and horses coming in her way, swallowing them downinto her capacious belly. She has several daughters, veryhandsome, and with plenty of money; happy the young Mujik whocatches and marries one of them, for they make excellent wives.

"Many thanks," said I, "for the information you have afforded me:this is rather poor wine," I observed, as I poured out a glass--"Isuppose you have better wine in Hungary?"

"Yes, we have better wine in Hungary. First of all there is Tokay,the most celebrated in the world, though I confess I prefer thewine of Eger--Tokay is too sweet."

"Have you ever been at Tokay?"

"I have," said the Hungarian.

"What kind of place is Tokay?"

"A small town situated on the Tyzza, a rapid river descending fromthe north; the Tokay Mountain is just behind the town, which standson the right bank. The top of the mountain is called Kopacs Teto,or the bald tip; the hill is so steep that during thunder-stormspieces frequently fall down upon the roofs of the houses. It wasplanted with vines by King Lajos, who ascended the throne in 1342.The best wine called Tokay is, however, not made at Tokay, but atKassau, two leagues farther into the Carpathians, of which Tokay isa spur. If you wish to drink the best Tokay, you must go toVienna, to which place all the prime is sent. For the third time Iask you, O young man of Horncastle! why does your Government alwayssend fools to represent it at Vienna?"

"And for the third time I tell you, O son of Almus! that I cannotsay; perhaps, however, to drink the sweet Tokay wine; fools, youknow, always like sweet things."

"Good," said the Hungarian; "it must be so, and when I return toHungary, I will state to my countrymen your explanation of acircumstance which has frequently caused them great perplexity.Oh! the English are a clever people, and have a deep meaning in allthey do. What a vision of deep policy opens itself to my view!they do not send their fool to Vienna in order to gape atprocessions, and to bow and scrape at a base Papist court, but todrink at the great dinners the celebrated Tokay of Hungary, whichthe Hungarians, though they do not drink it, are very proud of, andby doing so to intimate the sympathy which the English entertainfor their fellow religionists of Hungary. Oh! the English are adeep people."

CHAPTER XL

The Horncastle Welcome--Tzernebock and Bielebock.

The pipe of the Hungarian had, for some time past, exhibitedconsiderable symptoms of exhaustion, little or no ruttling havingbeen heard in the tube, and scarcely a particle of smoke, drawnthrough the syphon, having been emitted from the lips of thepossessor. He now rose from his seat, and going to a corner of theroom, placed his pipe against the wall, then striding up and downthe room, he cracked his fingers several times, exclaiming, in ahalf-musing manner, "Oh, the deep nation, which, in order todisplay its sympathy for Hungary, sends its fool to Vienna, todrink the sweet wine of Tokay!"

The jockey, having looked for some time at the tall figure withevident approbation, winked at me with that brilliant eye of his onwhich there was no speck, saying, "'Did you ever see a tallerfellow?"

"Never," said I.

"Or a finer?"

"That's another question," said I, "which I am not so willing toanswer; however, as I am fond of truth, and scorn to flatter, Iwill take the liberty of saying that I have seen a finer."

"A finer! where?" said the jockey; whilst the Hungarian, whoappeared to understand what we said, stood still, and looked fullat me.

"Amongst a strange set of people," said I, "whom, if I were toname, you would, I dare say, only laugh at me."

"Who be they?" said the jockey. "Come, don't be ashamed; I haveoccasionally kept queerish company myself."

"The people whom we call gypsies," said I; "whom the Germans callZigeuner, and who call themselves Romany chals."

"Zigeuner!" said the Hungarian; "by Isten! I do know thosepeople."

"Romany chals!" said the jockey; "whew! I begin to smell a rat."

"What do you mean by smelling a rat?" said I.

"I'll bet a crown," said the jockey, "that you be the young chapwhat certain folks call 'the Romany Rye.'"

"Ah!" said I, "how came you to know that name?"

"Be not you he?" said the jockey.

"Why, I certainly have been called by that name."

"I could have sworn it," said the jockey; then rising from hischair, he laid his pipe on the table, took a large hand-bell whichstood on the side-board, and going to the door, opened it, andcommenced ringing in a most tremendous manner on the staircase.The noise presently brought up a waiter, to whom the jockeyvociferated, "Go to your master, and tell him to send immediatelythree bottles of champagne, of the pink kind, mind you, which istwelve guineas a dozen;" the waiter hurried away, and the jockeyresumed his seat and his pipe. I sat in silent astonishment untilthe waiter returned with a basket containing the wine, which, withthree long glasses, he placed on the table. The jockey then gotup, and going to a large bow-window at the end of the room, whichlooked into a court-yard, peeped out; then saying, "the coast isclear," he shut down the principal sash which was open for the sakeof the air, and taking up a bottle of champagne, he placed anotherin the hands of the Hungarian, to whom he said something inprivate. The latter, who seemed to understand him, answered by anod. The two then going to the end of the table fronting thewindow, and about eight paces from it, stood before it, holding thebottles by their necks; suddenly the jockey lifted up his arm."Surely," said I, "you are not mad enough to fling that bottlethrough the window?" "Here's to the Romany Rye; here's to thesweet master," said the jockey, dashing the bottle through the panein so neat a manner that scarcely a particle of glass fell into theroom.

"Eljen edes csigany ur--eljen gul eray!" said the Hungarian,swinging round his bottle, and discharging it at the window; but,either not possessing the jockey's accuracy of aim, or reckless ofthe consequences, he flung his bottle so, that it struck againstpart of the wooden setting of the panes, breaking along with thewood and itself three or four panes to pieces. The crash washorrid, and wine and particles of glass flew back into the room, tothe no small danger of its inmates. "What do you think of that?"said the jockey; "were you ever so honoured before?" "Honoured!"said I. "God preserve me in future from such honour;" and I put myfinger to my cheek, which was slightly hurt by a particle of theglass. "That's the way we of the cofrady honour great men atHorncastle," said the jockey. "What, you are hurt! never mind; allthe better; your scratch shows that you are the body the complimentwas paid to." "And what are you going to do with the otherbottle?" said I. "Do with it!" said the jockey, "why, drink it,cosily and comfortably, whilst holding a little quiet talk. TheRomany Rye at Horncastle, what an idea!"

"And what will the master of the house say to all this damage whichyou have caused him!"

"What will your master say, William?" said the jockey to thewaiter, who had witnessed the singular scene just described withoutexhibiting the slightest mark of surprise. William smiled, andslightly shrugging his shoulders, replied, "Very little, I daresay, sir; this a'n't the first time your honour has done a thing ofthis kind." "Nor will it be the first time that I shall have paidfor it," said the jockey; "well, I shall never have paid for acertain item in the bill with more pleasure than I shall pay for itnow. Come, William, draw the cork, and let us taste the pinkchampagne."

The waiter drew the cork, and filled the glasses with a pinkyliquor, which bubbled, hissed, and foamed. "How do you like it?"said the jockey, after I had imitated the example of my companions,by despatching my portion at a draught.

"It is wonderful wine," said I; "I have never tasted champagnebefore, though I have frequently heard it praised; it more thananswers my expectations; but, I confess, I should not wish to beobliged to drink it every day."

The waiter withdrew, and I said to the jockey, " How did you becomeacquainted with the Romany chals?"

"I first became acquainted with them," said the jockey, "when Ilived with old Fulcher the basketmaker, who took me up when I wasadrift upon the world; I do not mean the present Fulcher, who islikewise called old Fulcher, but his father, who has been dead thismany a year; while living with him in the caravan, I frequently metthem in the green lanes, and of latter years I have had occasionaldealings with them in the horse line."

"And the gypsies have mentioned me to you?" said I.

"Frequently," said the jockey, "and not only those of these parts;why, there's scarcely a part of England in which I have not heardthe name of the Romany Rye mentioned by these people. The poweryou have over them is wonderful; that is, I should have thought itwonderful, had they not more than once told me the cause."

"And what is the cause?" said I, "for I am sure I do not know."

"The cause is this," said the jockey, "they never heard a bad wordproceed from your mouth, and never knew you do a bad thing."

"They are a singular people," said I.

"And what a singular language they have got," said the jockey.

"Do you know it?" said I.

"Only a few words," said the jockey, "they were always chary inteaching me any."

"They were vary sherry to me too," said the Hungarian, speaking inbroken English; "I only could learn from them half-a-dozen words,for example, gul eray, which, in the czigany of my country, meanssweet gentleman; or edes ur in my own Magyar."

"Gudlo Rye, in the Romany of mine, means a sugar'd gentleman," saidI; "then there are gypsies in your country?"

"Plenty," said the Hungarian, speaking German, "and in Russia andTurkey too; and wherever they are found, they are alike in theirways and language. Oh, they are a strange race, and how littleknown! I know little of them, but enough to say, that one horse-load of nonsense has been written about them; there is one ValterScott--"

"Mind what you say about him," said I; "he is our grand authorityin matters of philology and history."

"A pretty philologist," said the Hungarian, "who makes the gypsiesspeak Roth-Welsch, the dialect of thieves; a pretty historian, whocouples together Thor and Tzernebock."

"Where does he do that?" said I.

"In his conceited romance of 'Ivanhoe,' he couples Thor andTzernebock together, and calls them gods of the heathen Saxons."

"Well," said I, "Thur or Thor was certainly a god of the heathenSaxons."

"True," said the Hungarian; "but why couple him with Tzernebock?Tzernebock was a word which your Valter had picked up somewherewithout knowing the meaning. Tzernebock was no god of the Saxons,but one of the gods of the Sclaves, on the southern side of theBaltic. The Sclaves had two grand gods to whom they sacrificed,Tzernebock and Bielebock; that is, the black and white gods, whorepresented the powers of dark and light. They were overturned byWaldemar, the Dane, the great enemy of the Sclaves; the account ofwhose wars you will find in one fine old book, written by SaxoGramaticus, which I read in the library of the college ofDebreczen. The Sclaves, at one time, were masters of all thesouthern shore of the Baltic, where their descendants are still tobe found, though they have lost their language, and call themselvesGermans; but the word Zernevitz near Dantzic, still attests thatthe Sclavic language was once common in those parts. Zernevitzmeans the thing of blackness, as Tzernebock means the god ofblackness. Prussia itself merely means, in Sclavish, Lower Russia.There is scarcely a race or language in the world more extendedthan the Sclavic. On the other side of the Dunau you will find theSclaves and their language. Czernavoda is Sclavic, and means blackwater; in Turkish, kara su; even as Tzernebock means black god; andBelgrade, or Belograd, means the white town; even as Bielebock, orBielebog, means the white god. Oh! he is one great ignorant, thatValter. He is going, they say, to write one history aboutNapoleon. I do hope that in his history he will couple his Thorand Tzernebock together. By my God! it would be good diversionthat."

"Walter Scott appears to be no particular favourite of yours," saidI.

"He is not," said the Hungarian; "I hate him for his slavishprinciples. He wishes to see absolute power restored in thiscountry, and Popery also--and I hate him because--what do youthink? In one of his novels, published a few months ago, he hasthe insolence to insult Hungary in the presence of one of her sons.He makes his great braggart, Coeur de Lion, fling a Magyar over hishead. Ha! it was well for Richard that he never felt the gripe ofa Hungarian. I wish the braggart could have felt the gripe of me,who am 'a' magyarok kozt legkissebb,' the least among the Magyars.I do hate that Scott, and all his vile gang of Lowlanders andHighlanders. The black corps, the fekete regiment of MatyjasHunyadi, was worth all the Scots, high or low, that ever pretendedto be soldiers; and would have sent them all headlong into theBlack Sea, had they dared to confront it on its shores; but why beangry with an ignorant, who couples together Thor and Tzernebock?Ha! Ha!"

"You have read his novels?" said I.

"Yes, I read them now and then. I do not speak much English, but Ican read it well, and I have read some of his romances, and mean toread his 'Napoleon,' in the hope of finding Thor and Tzernebockcoupled together in it, as in his high-flying 'Ivanhoe.'"

"Come," said the jockey, "no more Dutch, whether high or low. I amtired of it; unless we can have some English, I am off to bed."

"I should be very glad to hear some English," said I; "especiallyfrom your mouth. Several things which you have mentioned, haveawakened my curiosity. Suppose you give us your history?"

"My history?" said the jockey. "A rum idea! however, lestconversation should lag, I'll give it you. First of all, however,a glass of champagne to each."

After we had each taken a glass of champagne, the jockey commencedhis history.

CHAPTER XLI

The Jockey's Tale--Thieves' Latin--Liberties with Coin--The Smasherin Prison--Old Fulcher--Every One has His Gift--Fashion of theEnglish.

"My grandfather was a shorter, and my father was a smasher; the onewas scragg'd, and the other lagg'd."

I here interrupted the jockey by observing that his discourse was,for the greater part, unintelligible to me.

"I do not understand much English," said the Hungarian, who, havingreplenished and resumed his mighty pipe, was now smoking away;"but, by Isten, I believe it is the gibberish which that greatignorant Valther Scott puts into the mouths of the folks he callsgypsies."

"Something like it, I confess," said I, "though this sounds moregenuine than his dialect, which he picked up out of the cantingvocabulary at the end of the 'English Rogue,' a book which, howeverdespised, was written by a remarkable genius. What do you call thespeech you were using?" said I, addressing myself to the jockey.

"Latin," said the jockey, very coolly, "that is, that dialect of itwhich is used by the light-fingered gentry."

"He is right," said the Hungarian; "it is what the Germans callRoth-Welsch: they call it so because there are a great many Latinwords in it, introduced by the priests, who, at the time of theReformation, being too lazy to work and too stupid to preach,joined the bands of thieves and robbers who prowled about thecountry. Italy, as you are aware, is called by the GermansWelschland, or the land of the Welschers; and I may add thatWallachia derives its name from a colony of Welschers which Trajansent there. Welsch and Wallack being one and the same word, andtantamount to Latin."

"I dare say you are right," said I; "but why was Italy termedWelschland?"

"I do not know," said the Hungarian.

"Then I think I can tell you," said I; "it was called so becausethe original inhabitants were a Cimbric tribe, who were calledGwyltiad, that is, a race of wild people, living in coverts, whowere of the same blood, and spoke the same language as the presentinhabitants of Wales. Welsh seems merely a modification ofGwyltiad. Pray continue your history," said I to the jockey, "onlyplease to do so in a language which we can understand, and first ofall interpret the sentence with which you began it."

"I told you that my grandfather was a shorter," said the jockey,"by which is meant a gentleman who shortens or reduces the currentcoin of these realms, for which practice he was scragged, that is,hung by the scrag of the neck. And when I said that my father wasa smasher, I meant one who passes forged notes, thereby doing hisbest to smash the Bank of England; by being lagged, I meant he waslaid fast, that is, had a chain put round his leg and thentransported."

"Your explanations are quite satisfactory," said I; "the threefirst words are metaphorical, and the fourth, lagged, is the oldgenuine Norse term, lagda, which signifies laid, whether indurance, or in bed, has nothing to do with the matter. What youhave told me confirms me in an opinion which I have longentertained, that thieves' Latin is a strange mysterious speech,formed of metaphorical terms, and words derived from the variousancient languages. Pray tell me, now, how the gentleman, yourgrandfather, contrived to shorten the coin of these realms?"

"You shall hear," said the jockey; "but I have one thing to beg ofyou, which is, that when I have once begun my history you will notinterrupt me with questions, I don't like them, they stops one, andputs one out of one's tale, and are not wanted; for anything whichI think can't be understood, I should myself explain, without beingasked. My grandfather reduced or shortened the coin of thiscountry by three processes. By aquafortis, by clipping, and byfiling. Filing and clipping he employed in reducing all sorts ofcoin, whether gold or silver; but aquafortis he used merely inreducing gold coin, whether guineas, jacobuses, or Portugal pieces,otherwise called moidores, which were at one time as current asguineas. By laying a guinea in aquafortis for twelve hours, hecould filch from it to the value of ninepence, and by letting itremain there for twenty-four to the value of eighteenpence, theaquafortis eating the gold away, and leaving it like a sediment inthe vessel. He was generally satisfied with taking the value ofninepence from a guinea, of eighteenpence from a jacobus ormoidore, or half-a-crown from a broad Spanish piece, whether hereduced them by aquafortis, filing, or clipping. From a five-shilling piece, which is called a bull in Latin because it is roundlike a bull's head, he would file or clip to the value offivepence, and from lesser coin in proportion. He was connectedwith a numerous gang, or set, of people, who had given up theirminds and talents entirely to shortening."

Here I interrupted the jockey. "How singular," said I, "is thefall and debasement of words; you talk of a gang, or set, ofshorters; you are, perhaps, not aware that gang and set were, athousand years ago, only connected with the great and Divine; theyare ancient Norse words, which may be found in the heroic poems ofthe north, and in the Edda, a collection of mythologic and heroicsongs. In these poems we read that such and such a king invadedNorway with a gang of heroes; or so and so, for example, ErikBloodaxe, was admitted to the set of gods; but at present gang andset are merely applied to the vilest of the vile, and the lowest ofthe low,--we say a gang of thieves and shorters, or a set ofauthors. How touching is this debasement of words in the course oftime; it puts me in mind of the decay of old houses and names. Ihave known a Mortimer who was a hedger and ditcher, a Berners whowas born in a workhouse, and a descendant of the De Burghs, whobore the falcon, mending old kettles, and making horse and ponyshoes in a dingle."

"Odd enough," said the jockey; "but you were saying you knew oneBerners--man or woman? I would ask."

"A woman," said I.

"What might her Christian name be?" said the jockey.

"It is not to be mentioned lightly," said I, with a sigh.

"I shouldn't wonder if it were Isopel," said the jockey with anarch glance of his one brilliant eye.

"It was Isopel," said I; "did you know Isopel Berners?"

"Ay, and have reason to know her," said the jockey, putting hishand into his left waistcoat pocket, as if to feel for something,"for she gave me what I believe few men could do--a most confoundedwhopping. But now, Mr. Romany Rye, I have again to tell you that Idon't like to be interrupted when I'm speaking, and to add that ifyou break in upon me a third time, you and I shall quarrel."

"Pray proceed with your story," said I; "I will not interrupt youagain."

"Good!" said the jockey. "Where was I? Oh, with a set of peoplewho had given up their minds to shortening! Reducing the coin,though rather a lucrative, was a very dangerous trade. Coin filedfelt rough to the touch; coin clipped could be easily detected bythe eye; and as for coin reduced by aquafortis, it was generally sodiscoloured that, unless a great deal of pains was used to polishit, people were apt to stare at it in a strange manner, and to say,'What have they been doing to this here gold?' My grandfather, asI have said before, was connected with a gang of shorters, andsometimes shortened money, and at other times passed off what hadbeen shortened by other gentry.

"Passing off what had been shortened by others was his ruin; foronce, in trying to pass off a broad piece which had been laid inaquafortis for four-and-twenty hours, and was very black, nothaving been properly rectified, he was stopped and searched, andother reduced coins being found about him, and in his lodgings, hewas committed to prison, tried, and executed. He was offered hislife, provided he would betray his comrades; but he told the big-wigs, who wanted him to do so, that he would see them fartherfirst, and died at Tyburn, amidst the cheers of the populace,leaving my grandmother and father, to whom he had always been akind husband and parent--for, setting aside the crime for which hesuffered, he was a moral man; leaving them, I say, to bewail hisirreparable loss.

"'Tis said that misfortune never comes alone; this is, however, notalways the case. Shortly after my grandfather's misfortune, as mygrandmother and her son were living in great misery inSpitalfields, her only relation--a brother from whom she had beenestranged some years, on account of her marriage with mygrandfather, who had been in an inferior station to herself--died,leaving all his property to her and the child. This propertyconsisted of a farm of about a hundred acres, with its stock, andsome money besides. My grandmother, who knew something ofbusiness, instantly went into the country, where she farmed theproperty for her own benefit and that of her son, to whom she gavean education suitable to a person in his condition, till he was oldenough to manage the farm himself. Shortly after the young mancame of age, my grandmother died, and my father, in about a year,married the daughter of a farmer, from whom he expected some littlefortune, but who very much deceived him, becoming a bankrupt almostimmediately after the marriage of his daughter, and himself andfamily going into the workhouse.

"My mother, however, made my father an excellent wife; and if myfather in the long run did not do well it was no fault of hers. Myfather was not a bad man by nature, he was of an easy, generoustemper, the most unfortunate temper, by the bye, for success inthis life that any person can be possessed of, as those who have itare almost sure to be made dupes of by the designing. But, thougheasy and generous, he was anything but a fool; he had a quick andwitty tongue of his own when he chose to exert it, and woe be tothose who insulted him openly, for there was not a better boxer inthe whole country round. My parents were married several yearsbefore I came into the world, who was their first and only child.I may be called an unfortunate creature; I was born with this beamor scale on my left eye, which does not allow me to see with it;and though I can see tolerably sharply with the other, indeed morethan most people can with both of theirs, it is a great misfortunenot to have two eyes like other people. Moreover, setting asidethe affair of my eye, I had a very ugly countenance; my mouth beingslightly wrung aside, and my complexion swarthy. In fact, I lookedso queer that the gossips and neighbours, when they first saw me,swore I was a changeling--perhaps it would have been well if I hadnever been born; for my poor father, who had been particularlyanxious to have a son, no sooner saw me than he turned away, wentto the neighbouring town, and did not return for two days. I am byno means certain that I was not the cause of his ruin, for till Icame into the world he was fond of his home, and attended much tobusiness, but afterwards he went frequently into company, and didnot seem to care much about his affairs: he was, however, a kindman, and when his wife gave him advice never struck her, nor do Iever remember that he kicked me when I came in his way, or so muchas cursed my ugly face, though it was easy to see that he didn'tover-like me. When I was six years old I was sent to the village-school, where I was soon booked for a dunce, because the masterfound it impossible to teach me either to read or write. Before Ihad been at school two years, however, I had beaten boys four yearsolder than myself, and could fling a stone with my left hand (forif I am right-eyed I am left-handed) higher and farther than anyone in the parish. Moreover, no boy could equal me at riding, andno people ride so well or desperately as boys. I could ride adonkey--a thing far more difficult to ride than a horse--at fullgallop over hedges and ditches, seated, or rather floating upon hishinder part,--so, though anything but clever, as this here RomanyRye would say, I was yet able to do things which few other peoplecould do. By the time I was ten my father's affairs had got into avery desperate condition, for he had taken to gambling and horse-racing, and, being unsuccessful, had sold his stock, mortgaged hisestate, and incurred very serious debts. The upshot was, thatwithin a little time all he had was seized, himself imprisoned, andmy mother and myself put into a cottage belonging to the parish,which, being very cold and damp, was the cause of her catching afever, which speedily carried her off. I was then bound apprenticeto a farmer, in whose service I underwent much coarse treatment,cold, and hunger.

"After lying in prison near two years, my father was liberated byan Act for the benefit of insolvent debtors; he was then lost sightof for some time; at last, however, he made his appearance in theneighbourhood dressed like a gentleman, and seemingly possessed ofplenty of money. He came to see me, took me into a field, andasked me how I was getting on. I told him I was dreadfully used,and begged him to take me away with him; he refused, and told me tobe satisfied with my condition, for that he could do nothing forme. I had a great love for my father, and likewise a greatadmiration for him on account of his character as a boxer, the onlycharacter which boys in general regard, so I wished much to be withhim, independently of the dog's life I was leading where I was; Itherefore said if he would not take me with him, I would followhim; he replied that I must do no such thing, for that if I did, itwould be my ruin. I asked him what he meant, but he made no reply,only saying that he would go and speak to the farmer. Then takingme with him, he went to the farmer, and in a very civil manner saidthat he understood I had not been very kindly treated by him, buthe hoped that in future I should be used better. The farmeranswered in a surly tone, that I had been only too well treated,for that I was a worthless young scoundrel; high words ensued, andthe farmer, forgetting the kind of man he had to deal with, checkedhim with my grandsire's misfortune, and said he deserved to behanged like his father. In a moment my father knocked him down,and on his getting up, gave him a terrible beating, then taking meby the hand he hastened away; as we were going down a lane he saidwe were now both done for: 'I don't care a straw for that,father,' said I, 'provided I be with you.' My father took me tothe neighbouring town, and going into the yard of a small inn, heordered out a pony and light cart which belonged to him, thenpaying his bill, he told me to mount upon the seat, and getting updrove away like lightning; we drove for at least six hours withoutstopping, till we came to a cottage by the side of a heath; we putthe pony and cart into a shed, and went into the cottage, my fatherunlocking the door with a key which he took out of his pocket;there was nobody in the cottage when we arrived, but shortly afterthere came a man and a woman, and then some more people, and by teno'clock at night there were a dozen of us in the cottage. Thepeople were companions of my father. My father began talking tothem in Latin, but I did not understand much of the discourse,though I believe it was about myself, as their eyes were frequentlyturned to me. Some objections appeared to be made to what he said;however, all at last seemed to be settled, and we all sat down tosome food. After that, all the people got up and went away, withthe exception of the woman, who remained with my father and me.The next day my father also departed, leaving me with the woman,telling me before he went that she would teach me some things whichit behoved me to know. I remained with her in the cottage upwardsof a week; several of those who had been there coming and going.The woman, after making me take an oath to be faithful, told methat the people whom I had seen were a gang who got theirlivelihood by passing forged notes, and that my father was aprincipal man amongst them, adding, that I must do my best toassist them. I was a poor ignorant child at that time, and I madeno objection, thinking that whatever my father did must be right;the woman then gave me some instructions in the smasher's dialectof the Latin language. I made great progress, because, for thefirst time in my life, I paid great attention to my lessons. Atlast my father returned, and, after some conversation with thewoman, took me away in his cart. I shall be very short about whathappened to my father and myself during two years. My father didhis best to smash the Bank of England by passing forged notes, andI did my best to assist him. We attended races and fairs in allkinds of disguises; my father was a first-rate hand at a disguise,and could appear of all ages, from twenty to fourscore; he was,however, grabbed at last. He had said, as I have told you, that heshould be my ruin, but I was the cause of his, and all owing to themisfortune of this here eye of mine. We came to this very place ofHorncastle, where my father purchased two horses of a young man,paying for them with three forged notes, purporting to be Bank ofEnglanders of fifty pounds each, and got the young man to changeanother of the like amount; he at that time appeared as arespectable dealer, and I as his son, as I really was.

"As soon as we had got the horses, we conveyed them to one of theplaces of call belonging to our gang, of which there were several.There they were delivered into the hands of our companions, whospeedily sold them in a distant part of the country. The sum whichthey fetched--for the gang kept very regular accounts--formed animportant item on the next day of sharing, of which there weretwelve in the year. The young man, whom my father had paid for thehorses with his smashing notes, was soon in trouble about them, andran some risk, as I heard, of being executed; but he bore a goodcharacter, told a plain story, and, above all, had friends, and wasadmitted to bail; to one of his friends he described my father andmyself. This person happened to be at an inn in Yorkshire, wheremy father, disguised as a Quaker, attempted to pass a forged note.The note was shown to this individual, who pronounced it a forgery,it being exactly similar to those for which the young man had beenin trouble, and which he had seen. My father, however, beingsupposed a respectable man, because he was dressed as a Quaker--thevery reason, by the bye, why anybody who knew aught of the Quakerswould have suspected him to be a rogue--would have been let go, hadI not made my appearance, dressed as his footboy. The friend ofthe young man looked at my eye, and seized hold of my father, whomade a desperate resistance, I assisting him, as in duty bound.Being, however, overpowered by numbers, he bade me by a look, and aword or two in Latin, to make myself scarce. Though my heart wasfit to break, I obeyed my father, who was speedily committed. Ifollowed him to the county town in which he was lodged, whereshortly after I saw him tried, convicted, and condemned. I then,having made friends with the jailor's wife, visited him in hiscell, where I found him very much cast down. He said, that mymother had appeared to him in a dream, and talked to him about aresurrection and Christ Jesus; there was a Bible before him, and hetold me the chaplain had just been praying with him. He reproachedhimself much, saying, he was afraid he had been my ruin, byteaching me bad habits. I told him not to say any such thing, forthat I had been the cause of his, owing to the misfortune of myeye. He begged me to give over all unlawful pursuits, saying, thatif persisted in, they were sure of bringing a person todestruction. I advised him to try and make his escape, proposing,that when the turnkey came to let me out, he should knock him down,and fight his way out, offering to assist him; showing him a smallsaw, with which one of our companions, who was in theneighbourhood, had provided me, and with which he could have cutthrough his fetters in five minutes; but he told me he had no wishto escape, and was quite willing to die. I was rather hard at thattime; I am not very soft now; and I felt rather ashamed of myfather's want of what I called spirit. He was not executed afterall; for the chaplain, who was connected with a great family, stoodhis friend, and got his sentence commuted, as they call it, totransportation; and in order to make the matter easy, he induced myfather to make some valuable disclosures with respect to thesmashers' system. I confess that I would have been hanged before Iwould have done so, after having reaped the profit of it; that is,I think so now, seated comfortably in my inn, with my bottle ofchampagne before me. He, however, did not show himself carrion; hewould not betray his companions, who had behaved very handsomely tohim, having given the son of a lord, a great barrister, not ahundred-pound forged bill, but a hundred hard guineas, to plead hiscause, and another ten, to induce him, after pleading, to put hishand to his breast, and say, that, upon his honour, he believed theprisoner at the bar to be an honest and injured man. No; I am gladto be able to say, that my father did not show himself exactlycarrion, though I could almost have wished he had let himself--However, I am here with my bottle of champagne and the Romany Rye,and he was in his cell, with bread and water and the prisonchaplain. He took an affectionate leave of me before he was sentaway, giving me three out of five guineas, all the money he hadleft. He was a kind man, but not exactly fitted to fill mygrandfather's shoes. I afterwards learned that he died of fever,as he was being carried across the sea.

"During the 'sizes I had made acquaintance with old Fulcher. I wasin the town on my father's account, and he was there on his son's,who, having committed a small larceny, was in trouble. YoungFulcher, however, unlike my father, got off, though he did not givethe son of a lord a hundred guineas to speak for him, and ten moreto pledge his sacred honour for his honesty, but gave Counsellor P--- one-and-twenty shillings to defend him, who so frightened theprincipal evidence, a plain honest farming-man, that he flatlycontradicted what he had first said, and at last acknowledgedhimself to be all the rogues in the world, and, amongst otherthings, a perjured villain. Old Fulcher, before he left the townwith his son,--and here it will be well to say that he and his sonleft it in a kind of triumph, the base drummer of a militiaregiment, to whom they had given half-a-crown, beating his drumbefore them--old Fulcher, I say, asked me to go and visit him,telling me where, at such a time, I might find him and his caravanand family; offering, if I thought fit, to teach me basket-making:so, after my father had been sent off, I went and found up oldFulcher, and became his apprentice in the basket-making line. Istayed with him till the time of his death, which happened in aboutthree months, travelling about with him and his family, and livingin green lanes, where we saw gypsies and trampers, and all kinds ofstrange characters. Old Fulcher, besides being an industriousbasket-maker, was an out-and-out thief, as was also his son, and,indeed, every member of his family. They used to make basketsduring the day, and thieve during a great part of the night. I hadnot been with them twelve hours before old Fulcher told me that Imust thieve as well as the rest. I demurred at first, for Iremembered the fate of my father, and what he had told me aboutleaving off bad courses, but soon allowed myself to be over-persuaded; more especially as the first robbery I was asked to dowas a fruit robbery. I was to go with young Fulcher, and stealsome fine Morell cherries, which grew against a wall in agentleman's garden; so young Fulcher and I went and stole thecherries, one half of which we ate, and gave the rest to the oldman, who sold them to a fruiterer ten miles off from the placewhere we had stolen them. The next night old Fulcher took me outwith himself. He was a great thief, though in a small way. Heused to say, that they were fools, who did not always manage tokeep the rope below their shoulders, by which he meant, that it wasnot advisable to commit a robbery, or do anything which could bringyou to the gallows. He was all for petty larceny, and knew whereto put his hand upon any little thing in England, which it waspossible to steal. I submit it to the better judgment of theRomany Rye, who I see is a great hand for words and names, whetherhe ought not to have been called old Filcher, instead of Fulcher.I shan't give a regular account of the larcenies he committedduring the short time I knew him, either alone by himself, or withme and his son. I shall merely relate the last.

"A melancholy gentleman, who lived a very solitary life, had alarge carp in a shady pond in a meadow close to his house; he wasexceedingly fond of it, and used to feed it with his own hand, thecreature being so tame that it would put its snout out of the waterto be fed when it was whistled to; feeding and looking at his carpwere the only pleasures the poor melancholy gentleman possessed.Old Fulcher--being in the neighbourhood, and having an order from afishmonger for a large fish, which was wanted at a great citydinner, at which His Majesty was to be present--swore he wouldsteal the carp, and asked me to go with him. I had heard of thegentleman's fondness for his creature, and begged him to let it be,advising him to go and steal some other fish; but old Fulcherswore, and said he would have the carp, although its master shouldhang himself; I told him he might go by himself, but he took hisson and stole the carp, which weighed seventeen pounds. OldFulcher got thirty shillings for the carp, which I afterwards heardwas much admired and relished by His Majesty. The master, however,of the carp, on losing his favourite, became more melancholy thanever, and in a little time hanged himself. 'What's sport for one,is death to another,' I once heard at the village-school read outof a copy-book.

"This was the last larceny old Fulcher ever committed. He couldkeep his neck always out of the noose, but he could not always keephis leg out of the trap. A few nights after, having removed to adistance, he went to an osier car in order to steal some osiers forhis basket-making, for he never bought any. I followed a littleway behind. Old Fulcher had frequently stolen osiers out of thecar, whilst in the neighbourhood, but during his absence theproperty, of which the car was a part, had been let to a younggentleman, a great hand for preserving game. Old Fulcher had notgot far into the car before he put his foot into a man-trap.Hearing old Fulcher shriek, I ran up, and found him in a dreadfulcondition. Putting a large stick which I carried into the jaws ofthe trap, I contrived to prize them open, and get old Fulcher's legout, but the leg was broken. So I ran to the caravan, and toldyoung Fulcher of what had happened, and he and I helped his fatherhome. A doctor was sent for, who said that it was necessary totake the leg off, but old Fulcher, being very much afraid of pain,said it should not be taken off, and the doctor went away, butafter some days, old Fulcher becoming worse, ordered the doctor tobe sent for, who came and took off his leg, but it was then toolate, mortification had come on, and in a little time old Fulcherdied.

"Thus perished old Fulcher; he was succeeded in his business by hisson, young Fulcher, who, immediately after the death of his father,was called old Fulcher, it being our English custom to calleverybody old, as soon as their fathers are buried; young Fulcher--I mean he who had been called young, but was now old Fulcher--wanted me to go out and commit larcenies with him; but I told himthat I would have nothing more to do with thieving, having seen theill effects of it, and that I should leave them in the morning.Old Fulcher begged me to think better of it, and his mother joinedwith him. They offered, if I would stay, to give me Mary Fulcheras a mort, till she and I were old enough to be regularly married,she being the daughter of the one, and the sister of the other. Iliked the girl very well, for she had always been civil to me, andhad a fair complexion and nice red hair, both of which I like,being a bit of a black myself; but I refused, being determined tosee something more of the world than I could hope to do with theFulchers, and, moreover, to live honestly, which I could never doalong with them. So the next morning I left them: I was, as Isaid before, quite determined upon an honest livelihood, and I soonfound one. He is a great fool who is ever dishonest in England.Any person who has any natural gift, and everybody has some naturalgift, is sure of finding encouragement in this noble country ofours, provided he will but exhibit it. I had not walked more thanthree miles before I came to a wonderfully high church steeple,which stood close by the road; I looked at the steeple, and goingto a heap of smooth pebbles which lay by the roadside, I took upsome, and then went into the churchyard, and placing myself justbelow the tower, my right foot resting on a ledge, about two footfrom the ground, I, with my left hand--being a left-handed person,do you see--flung or chucked up a stone, which, lighting on the topof the steeple, which was at least a hundred and fifty feet high,did there remain. After repeating this feat two or three times, I'hulled' up a stone, which went clean over the tower, and then one,my right foot still on the ledge, which rising at least five yardsabove the steeple, did fall down just at my feet. Without knowingit, I was showing off my gift to others besides myself, doing what,perhaps, not five men in England could do. Two men, who werepassing by, stopped and looked at my proceedings, and when I haddone flinging came into the churchyard, and, after paying me acompliment on what they had seen me do, proposed that I should joincompany with them; I asked them who they were, and they told me.The one was Hopping Ned, and the other Biting Giles. Both hadtheir gifts, by which they got their livelihood; Ned could hop ahundred yards with any man in England, and Giles could lift up withhis teeth any dresser or kitchen-table in the country, and,standing erect, hold it dangling in his jaws. There's many a bigoak table and dresser in certain districts of England, which bearthe marks of Giles's teeth; and I make no doubt that, a hundred ortwo years hence, there'll be strange stories about those marks, andthat people will point them out as a proof that there were giantsin bygone time, and that many a dentist will moralize on the decayswhich human teeth have undergone.

"They wanted me to go about with them, and exhibit my giftoccasionally, as they did theirs, promising that the money that wasgot by the exhibitions should be honestly divided. I consented,and we set off together, and that evening coming to a village, andputting up at the ale-house, all the grand folks of the villagebeing there smoking their pipes, we contrived to introduce thesubject of hopping--the upshot being that Ned hopped against theschool-master for a pound, and beat him hollow; shortly after,Giles, for a wager, took up the kitchen table in his jaws, thoughhe had to pay a shilling to the landlady for the marks he left,whose grandchildren will perhaps get money by exhibiting them. Asfor myself, I did nothing that day, but the next, on which mycompanions did nothing, I showed off at hulling stones against acripple, the crack man for stone-throwing, of a small town, a fewmiles farther on. Bets were made to the tune of some pounds; Icontrived to beat the cripple, and just contrived; for to do himjustice I must acknowledge he was a first-rate hand at stones,though he had a game hip, and went sideways; his head, when hewalked--if his movements could be called walking--not being abovethree feet above the ground. So we travelled, I and my companions,showing off our gifts, Giles and I occasionally for a gathering,but Ned never hopping, unless against somebody for a wager. Welived honestly and comfortably, making no little money by ournatural endowments, and were known over a great part of England as'Hopping Ned,' 'Biting Giles,' and 'Hull over the Head Jack,' whichwas my name, it being the blackguard fashion of the English, do yousee, to--"

Here I interrupted the jockey. "You may call it a blackguardfashion," said I, "and I dare say it is, or it would scarcely beEnglish; but it is an immensely ancient one, and is handed down tous from our northern ancestry, especially the Danes, who were inthe habit of giving people surnames, or rather nicknames, from somequality of body or mind, but generally from some disadvantageouspeculiarity of feature; for there is no denying that the English,Norse, or whatever we may please to call them, are an envious,depreciatory set of people, who not only give their poor comradescontemptuous names, but their great people also. They didn't callyou the matchless Hurler, because, by doing so, they would havepaid you a compliment, but Hull over the Head Jack, as much as tosay that after all you were a scrub; so, in ancient time, insteadof calling Regner the great conqueror, the Nation Tamer, theysurnamed him Lodbrog, which signifies Rough or Hairy Breeks--lod orloddin signifying rough or hairy; and instead of complimentingHalgerdr, the wife of Gunnar of Hlitharend, the great champion ofIceland, upon her majestic presence, by calling her Halgerdr, thestately or tall; what must they do but term her Ha-brokr, orHighbreeks, it being the fashion in old times for Northern ladiesto wear breeks, or breeches, which English ladies of the presentday never think of doing; and just, as of old, they called HalgerdrLong-breeks, so this very day a fellow of Horncastle called, in myhearing, our noble-looking Hungarian friend here, Long-stockings.Oh, I could give you a hundred instances, both ancient and modern,of this unseemly propensity of our illustrious race, though I willonly trouble you with a few more ancient ones; they not onlynicknamed Regner, but his sons also, who were all kings, anddistinguished men: one, whose name was Biorn, they nicknamedIronsides; another, Sigurd, Snake in the Eye; another, White Sark,or White Shirt--I wonder they did not call him Dirty Shirt; andIvarr, another, who was king of Northumberland, they calledBienlausi, or the Legless, because he was spindle-shanked, had nosap in his bones, and consequently no children. He was a greatking, it is true, and very wise, nevertheless his blackguardcountrymen, always averse, as their descendants are, to give creditto anybody, for any valuable quality or possession, must needs layhold, do you see--"

But before I could say any more, the jockey, having laid down hispipe, rose, and having taken off his coat, advanced towards me.

CHAPTER XLII

A Short-tempered Person--Gravitation--The Best Endowment--MaryFulcher--Fair Dealing--Horse-witchery--Darius and his Groom--TheJockey's Tricks--The Two Characters--The Jockey's Song.

The jockey, having taken off his coat and advanced towards me, as Ihave stated in the preceding chapter, exclaimed, in an angry tone,"This is the third time you have interrupted me in my tale, Mr.Rye; I passed over the two first times with a simple warning, butyou will now please to get up and give me the satisfaction of aman."

"I am really sorry," said I, "if I have given you offence, but youwere talking of our English habits of bestowing nicknames, and Icould not refrain from giving a few examples tending to prove whata very ancient habit it is."

"But you interrupted me," said the jockey, "and put me out of mytale, which you had no right to do; and as for your examples, howdo you know that I wasn't going to give some as old or older thanyourn? Now stand up, and I'll make an example of you."

"Oh," said I, getting up, "if asking pardon does not satisfy you,you are a different man from what I considered you."

But here the Hungarian, also getting up, interposed his tall formand pipe between us, saying in English, scarcely intelligible, "Letthere be no dispute! As for myself, I am very much obliged to theyoung man of Horncastle for his interruption, though he has told methat one of his dirty townsmen called me 'Long-stocking.' ByIsten! there is more learning in what he has just said than in allthe verdammt English histories of Thor and Tzernebock I ever read."

"I care nothing for his learning," said the jockey. "I considermyself as good a man as he, for all his learning; so stand out ofthe way, Mr. Sixfooteleven, or--"

"I shall do no such thing," said the Hungarian. "I wonder you arenot ashamed of yourself. You ask a young man to drink champagnewith you, you make him dronk, he interrupt you with very goodsense; he ask your pardon, yet you not--"

"Well," said the jockey, "I am satisfied. I am rather a short-tempered person, but I bear no malice. He is, as you say, drinkingmy wine, and has perhaps taken a drop too much, not being used tosuch high liquor; but one doesn't like to be put out of one's tale,more especially when one was about to moralize, do you see,oneself, and to show off what little learning one has. However, Ibears no malice. Here is a hand to each of you; we'll take anotherglass each, and think no more about it."

The jockey having shaken both of our hands, and filled our glassesand his own with what champagne remained in the bottle, put on hiscoat, sat down, and resumed his pipe and story.

"Where was I? Oh, roaming about the country with Hopping Ned andBiting Giles. Those were happy days, and a merry and prosperouslife we led. However, nothing continues under the sun in the samestate in which it begins, and our firm was soon destined to undergoa change. We came to a village where there was a very high churchsteeple, and in a little time my comrades induced a crowd of peopleto go and see me display my gift by flinging stones above the headsof Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who stood at the four corners onthe top, carved in stone. The parson, seeing the crowd, camewaddling out of his rectory to see what was going on. After I hadflung up the stones, letting them fall just where I liked--and one,I remember, fell on the head of Mark, where I dare say it remainsto the present day--the parson, who was one of the description ofpeople called philosophers, held up his hand, and asked me to letthe next stone I flung up fall upon it. He wished, do you see, toknow with what weight the stone would fall down, and talkedsomething about gravitation--a word which I could never understandto the present day, save that it turned out a grave matter to me.I, like a silly fellow myself, must needs consent, and, flingingthe stone up to a vast height, contrived so that it fell into theparson's hand, which it cut dreadfully. The parson flew into agreat rage, more particularly as everybody laughed at him, and,being a magistrate, ordered his clerk, who was likewise constable,to conduct me to prison as a rogue and vagabond, telling mycomrades that if they did not take themselves off, he would servethem in the same manner. So Ned hopped off, and Giles ran afterhim, without making any gathering, and I was led to Bridewell, mymittimus following at the end of a week, the parson's hand notpermitting him to write before that time. In the Bridewell Iremained a month, when, being dismissed, I went in quest of mycompanions, whom, after some time, I found up, but they refused tokeep my company any longer; telling me that I was a dangerouscharacter, likely to bring them more trouble than profit; they had,moreover, filled up my place. Going into a cottage to ask for adrink of water, they saw a country fellow making faces to amuse hischildren; the faces were so wonderful that Hopping Ned and BitingGiles at once proposed taking him into partnership, and the man--who was a fellow not very fond of work--after a little entreaty,went away with them. I saw him exhibit his gift, and couldn'tblame the others for preferring him to me; he was a proper uglyfellow at all times, but when he made faces his countenance waslike nothing human. He was called Ugly Moses. I was so amazed athis faces, that though poor myself I gave him sixpence, which Ihave never grudged to this day, for I never saw anything like them.The firm throve wonderfully after he had been admitted into it. Hedied some little time ago, keeper of a public-house, which he hadbeen enabled to take from the profits of his faces. A son of his,one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades enteredhis door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one. He hashis gift--he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he hassomething better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quietgrin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like hisfather, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned andBiting Giles, but that grin of his caused him to be noticed by amuch greater person than either; an attorney observing it took aliking to the lad, and prophesied that he would some day be heardof in the world; and in order to give him the first lift, took himinto his office, at first to light fires and do such kind of work,and after a little time taught him to write, then promoted him to adesk, articled him afterwards, and being unmarried, and withoutchildren, left him what he had when he died. The young fellow,after practising at the law some time, went to the bar, where, in afew years, helped on by his grin, for he had nothing else torecommend him, he became, as I said before, a rising barrister. Hecomes our circuit, and I occasionally employ him, when I am obligedto go to law about such a thing as an unsound horse. He generallybrings me through--or rather that grin of his does--and yet I don'tlike the fellow, confound him, but I'm an oddity--no, the one Ilike, and whom I generally employ, is a fellow quite different, abluff sturdy dog, with no grin on his face, but with a look thatseems to say I am an honest man, and what cares I for any one? Andan honest man he is, and something more. I have known coves with abetter gift of the gab, though not many, but he always speaks tothe purpose, and understands law thoroughly; and that's not all.When at college, for he has been at college, he carried offeverything before him as a Latiner, and was first-rate at a gamethey call matthew mattocks. I don't exactly know what it is, but Ihave heard that he who is first-rate at matthew mattocks is thoughtmore of than if he were first-rate Latiner.

"Well, the chap that I'm talking about, not only came out first-rate Latiner, but first-rate at matthew mattocks too; doing, infact, as I am told by those who knows, for I was never at collegemyself, what no one had ever done before. Well, he makes hisappearance at our circuit, does very well, of course, but he has asomewhat high front, as becomes an honest man, and one who has beatevery one at Latin and matthew mattocks; and one who can speakfirst-rate law and sense;--but see now, the cove with the grin, whohas like myself never been at college; knows nothing of Latin, ormatthew mattocks, and has no particular gift of the gab, has twobriefs for his one, and I suppose very properly, for that grin ofhis curries favour with the juries; and mark me, that grin of hiswill enable him to beat the other in the long run. We all knowwhat all barrister coves looks forward to--a seat on the hop sack.Well, I'll bet a bull to fivepence, that the grinner gets upon it,and the snarler doesn't; at any rate, that he gets there first. Icalls my cove--for he is my cove--a snarler; because your first-rates at matthew mattocks are called snarlers, and for no otherreason; for the chap, though with a high front, is a good chap, andonce drank a glass of ale with me, after buying an animal out of mystable. I have often thought it a pity he wasn't born with a grinon his face like the son of Ugly Moses. It is true he wouldscarcely then have been an out and outer at Latin and matthewmattocks, but what need of either to a chap born with a grin? Talkof being born with a silver spoon in one's mouth! give me a coveborn with a grin on his face--a much better endowment.

"I will now shorten my history as much as I can, for we have talkedas much as folks do during a whole night in the Commons' House,though, of course, not with so much learning, or so much to thepurpose, because--why? They are in the House of Commons, and we ina public room of an inn at Horncastle. The goodness of the ale, doye see, never depending on what it is made of, oh, no! but on thefashion and appearance of the jug in which it is served up. Afterbeing turned out of the firm, I got my living in two or threehonest ways, which I shall not trouble you with describing. I didnot like any of them, however, as they did not exactly suit myhumour; at last I found one which did. One Saturday afternoon, Ichanced to be in the cattle-market of a place about eighty milesfrom here; there I won the favour of an old gentleman who solddickeys. He had a very shabby squad of animals, without soul orspirit; nobody would buy them, till I leaped upon their hinderends, and by merely wriggling in a particular manner, made themcaper and bound so to people's liking, that in a few hours everyone of them was sold at very sufficient prices. The old gentlemanwas so pleased with my skill, that he took me home with him, and ina very little time into partnership. It's a good thing to have agift, but yet better to have two. I might have got a very decentlivelihood by throwing stones, but I much question whether I shouldever have attained to the position in society which I now occupy,but for my knowledge of animals. I lived very comfortably with theold gentleman till he died, which he did in about a fortnight afterhe had laid his old lady in the ground. Having no children, heleft me what should remain after he had been buried decently, andthe remainder was six dickeys and thirty shillings in silver. Iremained in the dickey trade ten years, during which time I saved ahundred pounds. I then embarked in the horse line. One day, beingin the--market on a Saturday, I saw Mary Fulcher with a halterround her neck, led about by a man, who offered to sell her foreighteen-pence. I took out the money forthwith and bought her; theman was her husband, a basket-maker, with whom she had livedseveral years without having any children; he was a drunken,quarrel-some fellow, and having had a dispute with her the daybefore, he determined to get rid of her, by putting a halter roundher neck and leading her to the cattle-market, as if she were amare, which he had, it seems, a right to do;--all women beingconsidered mares by old English law, and, indeed, still calledmares in certain counties, where genuine old English is stillpreserved. That same afternoon, the man who had been her husband,having got drunk in a public-house, with the money which he hadreceived for her, quarrelled with another man, and receiving a blowunder the ear, fell upon the floor, and died of artiflex; and inless than three weeks I was married to Mary Fulcher, by virtue ofregular bans. I am told she was legally my property by virtue ofmy having bought her with a halter round her neck; but, to tell youthe truth, I think everybody should live by his trade, and I didn'twish to act shabbily towards our parson, who is a good fellow, andhas certainly a right to his fees. A better wife than MaryFulcher--I mean Mary Dale--no one ever had; she has borne meseveral children, and has at all times shown a willingness tooblige me, and to be my faithful wife. Amongst other things, Ibegged her to have done with her family, and I believe she hasnever spoken to them since.

"I have thriven very well in business, and my name is up as being aperson who can be depended on, when folks treats me handsomely. Ialways make a point when a gentleman comes to me, and says, 'Mr.Dale,' or 'John,' for I have no objection to be called John by agentleman--'I wants a good horse, and am ready to pay a goodprice'--I always makes a point, I say, to furnish him with ananimal worth the money; but when I sees a fellow, whether he callshimself gentleman or not, wishing to circumvent me, what does I do?I doesn't quarrel with him; not I; but, letting him imagine he istaking me in, I contrives to sell him a screw for thirty pounds,not worth thirty shillings. All honest respectable people have atpresent great confidence in me, and frequently commissions me tobuy them horses at great fairs like this.

"This short young gentleman was recommended to me by a great landedproprietor, to whom he bore letters of recommendation from somegreat prince in his own country, who had a long time ago beenentertained at the house of the landed proprietor, and theconsequence is, that I brings young six foot six to Horncastle, andpurchases for him the horse of the Romany Rye. I don't do thesekind things for nothing, it is true; that can't be expected; forevery one must live by his trade; but, as I said before, when I amtreated handsomely, I treat folks so. Honesty, I have discovered,as perhaps some other people have, is by far the best policy;though, as I also said before, when I'm along with thieves, I canbeat them at their own game. If I am obliged to do it, I can passoff the veriest screw as a flying drummedary, for even when I was achild I had found out by various means what may be done withanimals. I wish now to ask a civil question, Mr. Romany Rye.Certain folks have told me that you are a horse witch; are you one,or are you not?"

"I, like yourself," said I, "know, to a certain extent, what may bedone with animals."

"Then how would you, Mr. Romany Rye, pass off the veriest screw inthe world for a flying drummedary?"

"By putting a small live eel down his throat; as long as the eelremained in his stomach, the horse would appear brisk and lively ina surprising degree."

"And how would you contrive to make a regular kicker and biterappear so tame and gentle, that any respectable fat old gentlemanof sixty, who wanted an easy goer, would be glad to purchase himfor fifty pounds?"

"By pouring down his throat four pints of generous old ale, whichwould make him so happy and comfortable, that he would not have theheart to kick or bite anybody, for a season at least."

"And where did you learn all this?" said the jockey.

"I have read about the eel in an old English book, and about themaking drunk in a Spanish novel, and, singularly enough, I was toldthe same things by a wild blacksmith in Ireland. Now tell me, doyou bewitch horses in this way?"

"I?" said the jockey; "mercy upon us! I wouldn't do such thingsfor a hatful of money. No, no, preserve me from live eels andhocussing! And now let me ask you, how would you spirit a horseout of a field?"

"How would I spirit a horse out of a field?"

"Yes; supposing you were down in the world, and had determined ontaking up the horse-stealing line of business."

"Why, I should-- But I tell you what, friend, I see you are tryingto pump me, and I tell you plainly that I will hear something fromyou with respect to your art, before I tell you anything more. Nowhow would you whisper a horse out of a field, provided you weredown in the world, and so forth?"

"Ah, ah, I see you are up to a game, Mr. Romany: however, I am agentleman in mind, if not by birth, and I scorn to do theunhandsome thing to anybody who has dealt fairly towards me. Nowyou told me something I didn't know, and I'll tell you somethingwhich perhaps you do know. I whispers a horse out of a field inthis way: I have a mare in my stable; well, in the early season ofthe year I goes into my stable--Well, I puts the sponge into asmall bottle which I keeps corked. I takes my bottle in my hand,and goes into a field, suppose by night, where there is a very finestag horse. I manage with great difficulty to get within ten yardsof the horse, who stands staring at me just ready to run away. Ithen uncorks my bottle, presses my fore-finger to the sponge, andholds it out to the horse, the horse gives a sniff, then a start,and comes nearer. I corks up my bottle and puts it into my pocket.My business is done, for the next two hours the horse would followme anywhere--the difficulty, indeed, would be to get rid of him.Now is that your way of doing business?"

"My way of doing business? Mercy upon us! I wouldn't steal ahorse in that way, or, indeed, in any way, for all the money in theworld: however, let me tell you, for your comfort, that a tricksomewhat similar is described in the history of Herodotus."

"In the history of Herod's ass!" said the jockey; "well, if I didwrite a book, it should be about something more genteel than adickey."

"I did not say Herod's ass," said I, "but Herodotus, a very genteelwriter, I assure you, who wrote a history about very genteelpeople, in a language no less genteel than Greek, more than twothousand years ago. There was a dispute as to who should be kingamongst certain imperious chieftains. At last they agreed to obeyhim whose horse should neigh first on a certain day, in front ofthe royal palace, before the rising of the sun; for you must knowthat they did not worship the person who made the sun as we do, butthe sun itself. So one of these chieftains, talking over thematter to his groom, and saying he wondered who would be king, thefellow said, 'Why you, master, or I don't know much about horses.'So the day before the day of trial, what does the groom do, buttake his master's horse before the palace and introduce him to amare in the stable, and then lead him forth again. Well, early thenext day all the chieftains on their horses appeared in front ofthe palace before the dawn of day. Not a horse neighed but one,and that was the horse of him who had consulted with his groom,who, thinking of the animal within the stable, gave such a neighthat all the buildings rang. His rider was forthwith elected king,and a brave king he was. So this shows what seemingly wonderfulthings may be brought about by a little preparation."

"It doth," said the jockey; "what was the chap's name?"

"His name--his name--Darius Hystaspes."

"And the groom's?"

"I don't know."

"And he made a good king?"

"First-rate."

"Only think! well, if he made a good king, what a wonderful kingthe groom would have made, through whose knowledge of 'orses he wasput on the throne. And now another question, Mr. Romany Rye, haveyou particular words which have power to soothe or aggravatehorses?"

"You should ask me," said I, "whether I have horses that can beaggravated or soothed by particular words. No words have anyparticular power over horses or other animals who have never heardthem before--how, should they? But certain animals connect ideasof misery or enjoyment with particular words which they areacquainted with. I'll give you an example. I knew a cob inIreland that could be driven to a state of kicking madness by aparticular word, used by a particular person, in a particular tone;but that word was connected with a very painful operation which hadbeen performed upon him by that individual, who had frequentlyemployed it at a certain period whilst the animal had been underhis treatment. The same cob could be soothed in a moment byanother word, used by the same individual in a very different kindof tone; the word was deaghblasda, or sweet tasted. Some timeafter the operation, whilst the cob was yet under his hands, thefellow--who was what the Irish call a fairy smith--had done all hecould to soothe the creature, and had at last succeeded by givingit gingerbread-buttons, of which the cob became passionately fond.Invariably, however, before giving it a button, he said,'Deaghblasda,' with which word the cob by degrees associated anidea of unmixed enjoyment: so if he could rouse the cob to madnessby the word which recalled the torture to its remembrance, he couldas easily soothe it by the other word, which the cob knew would beinstantly followed by the button, which the smith never failed togive him after using the word deaghblasda."

"There is nothing wonderful to be done," said the jockey, "withouta good deal of preparation, as I know myself. Folks stare andwonder at certain things which they would only laugh at if theyknew how they were done; and to prove what I say is true, I willgive you one or two examples. Can either of you lend me ahandkerchief? That won't do," said he, as I presented him with asilk one. "I wish for a delicate white handkerchief. That's justthe kind of thing," said he, as the Hungarian offered him a finewhite cambric handkerchief, beautifully worked with gold at thehems; "now you shall see me set this handkerchief on fire." "Don'tlet him do so by any means," said the Hungarian, speaking to me inGerman, "it is the gift of a lady whom I highly admire, and I wouldnot have it burnt for the world." "He has no occasion to be underany apprehension," said the jockey, after I had interpreted to himwhat the Hungarian had said, "I will restore it to him uninjured,or my name is not Jack Dale." Then sticking the handkerchiefcarelessly into the left side of his bosom, he took the candle,which by this time had burnt very low, and holding his head back,he applied the flame to the handkerchief, which instantly seemed tocatch fire. "What do you think of that?" said he to the Hungarian."Why, that you have ruined me," said the latter. "No harm done, Iassure you," said the jockey, who presently, clapping his hand onhis bosom, extinguished the fire, and returned the handkerchief tothe Hungarian, asking him if it was burnt. "I see no burn uponit," said the Hungarian; "but in the name of Gott, how could youset it on fire without burning it?" "I never set it on fire atall," said the jockey; "I set this on fire," showing us a piece ofhalf-burnt calico. "I placed this calico above it, and lighted notthe handkerchief, but the rag. Now I will show you something else.I have a magic shilling in my pocket, which I can make run up alongmy arm. But, first of all, I would gladly know whether either ofyou can do the like." Thereupon the Hungarian and myself, puttingour hands into our pockets, took out shillings, and endeavoured tomake them run up our arms, but utterly failed; both shillings,after we had made two or three attempts, falling to the ground."What noncomposses you both are," said the jockey; and placing ashilling on the end of the fingers of his right hand he madestrange faces to it, drawing back his head, whereupon the shillinginstantly began to run up his arm, occasionally hopping and jumpingas if it were bewitched, always endeavouring to make towards thehead of the jockey.

"How do I do that?" said he, addressing himself to me. "I reallydo not know," said I, "unless it is by the motion of your arm.""The motion of my nonsense," said the jockey, and, making adreadful grimace, the shilling hopped upon his knee, and began torun up his thigh and to climb up his breast. "How is that done?"said he again. "By witchcraft, I suppose," said I. "There you areright," said the jockey; "by the witchcraft of one of Miss Berners'hairs; the end of one of her long hairs is tied to that shilling bymeans of a hole in it, and the other end goes round my neck bymeans of a loop; so that, when I draw back my head, the shillingfollows it. I suppose you wish to know how I got the hair," saidhe, grinning at me. "I will tell you. I once, in the course of myridings, saw Miss Berners beneath a hedge, combing out her longhair, and, being rather a modest kind of person, what must I do butget off my horse, tie him to a gate, go up to her, and endeavour toenter into conversation with her. After giving her the sele of theday, and complimenting her on her hair, I asked her to give me oneof the threads; whereupon she gave me such a look, and, calling mefellow, told me to take myself off. 'I must have a hair first,'said I, making a snatch at one. I believe I hurt her; but, whetherI did or not, up she started, and, though her hair was unbound,gave me the only drubbing I ever had in my life. Lor! how, withher right hand, she fibbed me whilst she held me round the neckwith her left arm; I was soon glad to beg her pardon on my knees,which she gave me in a moment, when she saw me in that condition,being the most placable creature in the world, and not only herpardon, but one of the hairs which I longed for, which I putthrough a shilling, with which I have on evenings after fairs, likethis, frequently worked what seemed to those who looked ondownright witchcraft, but which is nothing more than pleasantdeception. And now, Mr. Romany Rye, to testify my regard for you,I give you the shilling and the hair. I think you have a kind ofrespect for Miss Berners; but whether you have or not, keep them aslong as you can, and whenever you look at them think of the finestwoman in England, and of John Dale, the jockey of Horncastle. Ibelieve I have told you my history," said he--"no, not quite; thereis one circumstance I had passed over. I told you that I havethriven very well in business, and so I have, upon the whole; atany rate, I find myself comfortably off now. I have horses, money,and owe nobody a groat; at any rate, nothing but what I could payto-morrow. Yet I have had my dreary day, ay, after I had obtainedwhat I call a station in the world. All of a sudden, about fiveyears ago, everything seemed to go wrong with me--horses becamesick or died, people who owed me money broke or ran away, my housecaught fire, in fact, everything went against me; and not from anymismanagement of my own. I looked round for help, but--what do youthink?--nobody would help me. Somehow or other it had got abroadthat I was in difficulties, and everybody seemed disposed to avoidme, as if I had got the plague. Those who were always offering mehelp when I wanted none, now, when they thought me in trouble,talked of arresting me. Yes; two particular friends of mine, whohad always been offering me their purses when my own was stuffedfull, now talked of arresting me, though I only owed the scoundrelsa hundred pounds each; and they would have done so, provided I hadnot paid them what I owed them; and how did I do that? Why, I wasable to do it because I found a friend--and who was that friend?Why, a man who has since been hung, of whom everybody has heard,and of whom everybody for the next hundred years will occasionallytalk.

"One day, whilst in trouble, I was visited by a person I hadoccasionally met at sporting-dinners. He came to look after aSuffolk Punch, the best horse, by the bye, that anybody canpurchase to drive, it being the only animal of the horse kind inEngland that will pull twice at a dead weight. I told him that Ihad none at that time that I could recommend; in fact, that everyhorse in my stable was sick. He then invited me to dine with himat an inn close by, and I was glad to go with him, in the hope ofgetting rid of unpleasant thoughts. After dinner, during which hetalked nothing but slang, observing I looked very melancholy, heasked me what was the matter with me, and I, my heart being openedby the wine he had made me drink, told him my circumstances withoutreserve. With an oath or two for not having treated him at firstlike a friend, he said he would soon set me all right; and pullingout two hundred pounds, told me to pay him when I could. I felt asI never felt before; however, I took his notes, paid my sneaks, andin less than three months was right again, and had returned him hismoney. On paying it to him, I said that I had now a lunch whichwould just suit him, saying that I would give it to him--a freegift--for nothing. He swore at me;--telling me to keep my Punch,for that he was suited already. I begged him to tell me how Icould requite him for his kindness, whereupon, with the mostdreadful oath I ever heard, he bade me come and see him hanged whenhis time was come. I wrung his hand, and told him I would, and Ikept my word. The night before the day he was hanged at H---, Iharnessed a Suffolk Punch to my light gig, the same Punch which Ihad offered to him, which I have ever since kept, and which broughtme and this short young man to Horncastle, and in eleven hours Idrove that Punch one hundred and ten miles. I arrived at H--- justin the nick of time. There was the ugly jail--the scaffold--andthere upon it stood the only friend I ever had in the world.Driving my Punch, which was all in a foam, into the midst of thecrowd, which made way for me as if it knew what I came for, I stoodup in my gig, took off my hat, and shouted, 'God Almighty blessyou, Jack!' The dying man turned his pale grim face towards me--for his face was always somewhat grim, do you see--nodded and said,or I thought I heard him say, 'All right, old chap.' The nextmoment--my eyes water. He had a high heart, got into a scrapewhilst in the marines, lost his half-pay, took to the turf, ring,gambling, and at last cut the throat of a villain who had robbedhim of nearly all he had. But he had good qualities, and I knowfor certain that he never did half the bad things laid to hischarge; for example, he never bribed Tom Oliver to fight cross, asit was said he did on the day of the awful thunder-storm. NedFlatnose fairly beat Tom Oliver, for though Ned was not what'scalled a good fighter, he had a particular blow, which if he couldput in he was sure to win. His right shoulder, do you see, was twoinches farther back than it ought to have been, and consequentlyhis right fist generally fell short; but if he could swing himselfround, and put in a blow with that right arm, he could kill or takeaway the senses of anybody in the world. It was by putting in thatblow in his second fight with Spring that he beat noble Tom.Spring beat him like a sack in the first battle, but in the secondNed Painter--for that was his real name--contrived to put in hisblow, and took the senses out of Spring; and in like manner he tookthe senses out of Tom Oliver.

"Well, some are born to be hanged, and some are not; and many ofthose who are not hanged are much worse than those who are. Jack,with many a good quality, is hanged, whilst that fellow of a lord,who wanted to get the horse from you at about two-thirds of hisvalue, without a single good quality in the world, is not hanged,and probably will remain so. You ask the reason why, perhaps.I'll tell you; the lack of a certain quality called courage, whichJack possessed in abundance, will preserve him; from the love whichhe bears his own neck he will do nothing which can bring him to thegallows. In my rough way I'll draw their characters from theirchildhood, and then ask whether Jack was not the best character ofthe two. Jack was a rough, audacious boy, fond of fighting, goinga birds'-nesting, but I never heard he did anything particularlycruel save once, I believe, tying a canister to a butcher's dog'stail; whilst this fellow of a lord was by nature a savage beast,and when a boy would in winter pluck poor fowls naked, and set themrunning on the ice and in the snow, and was particularly fond ofburning cats alive in the fire. Jack, when a lad, gets acommission on board a ship as an officer of horse marines, and intwo or three engagements behaves quite up to the mark--at least ofa marine; the marines having no particular character for courage,you know--never having run to the guns and fired them like madmenafter the blue jackets had had more than enough. Oh, dear me, no!My lord gets into the valorous British army, where cowardice--Oh,dear me!--is a thing almost entirely unknown; and being on thefield of Waterloo the day before the battle, falls off his horse,and, pretending to be hurt in the back, gets himself put on thesick list--a pretty excuse--hurting his back--for not being presentat such a fight. Old Benbow, after part of both his legs had beenshot away in a sea-fight, made the carpenter make him a cradle tohold his bloody stumps, and continued on deck, cheering his mentill he died. Jack returns home, and gets into trouble, and havingnothing to subsist by but his wits, gets his living by the ring andthe turf, doing many an odd kind of thing, I dare say, but not halfthose laid to his charge. My lord does much the same without theexcuse for doing so which Jack had, for he had plenty of means, isa leg, and a black, only in a more polished way, and with morecunning, and I may say success, having done many a rascally thingnever laid to his charge. Jack at last cuts the throat of avillain who had cheated him of all he had in the world, and who, Iam told, was in many points the counterpart of this screw and whitefeather, is taken up, tried, and executed; and certainly takingaway a man's life is a dreadful thing; but is there nothing as bad?Whitefeather will cut no person's throat--I will not say who hascheated him, for, being a cheat himself, he will take good carethat nobody cheats him, but he'll do something quite as bad; out ofenvy to a person who never injured him, and whom he hates for beingmore clever and respected than himself, he will do all he possiblycan, by backbiting and every unfair means, to do that person amortal injury. But Jack is hanged, and my lord it not. Is thatright? My wife, Mary Fulcher--I beg her pardon, Mary Dale--who isa Methodist, and has heard the mighty preacher, Peter Williams,says some people are preserved from hanging by the grace of God.With her I differs, and says it is from want of courage. ThisWhitefeather, with one particle of Jack's courage, and with onetithe of his good qualities, would have been hanged long ago, forhe has ten times Jack's malignity. Jack was hanged because, alongwith his bad qualities, he had courage and generosity; this fellowis not, because with all Jack's bad qualities, and many more,amongst which is cunning, he has neither courage nor generosity.Think of a fellow like that putting down two hundred pounds torelieve a distressed fellow-creature; why he would rob, but for thelaw and the fear it fills him with, a workhouse child of itsbreakfast, as the saying is--and has been heard to say that hewould not trust his own father for sixpence, and he can't imaginewhy such a thing as credit should be ever given. I never heard aperson give him a good word--stay, stay, yes! I once heard an oldparson, to whom I sold a Punch, say that he had the art ofreceiving company gracefully and dismissing them withoutrefreshment. I don't wish to be too hard with him, and so let himmake the most of that compliment. Well! he manages to get on,whilst Jack is hanged; not quite enviably, however; he has had hisrubs, and pretty hard ones--everybody knows he slunk from Waterloo,and occasionally checks him with so doing; whilst he has beenrejected by a woman--what a mortification to the low pride of whichthe scoundrel has plenty! There's a song about both circumstances,which may, perhaps, ring in his ears on a dying bed. It's a funnykind of song, set to the old tune of the Lord-Lieutenant or Deputy,and with it I will conclude my discourse, for I really think it'spast one." The jockey then, with a very tolerable voice, sung thefollowing song:-

THE JOCKEY'S SONG.

Now list to a ditty both funny and true! -Merrily moves the dance along -A ditty that tells of a coward and screw,My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.

Sir Plume, though not liking a bullet at all, -Merrily moves the dance along -Had yet resolution to go to a BALL,My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.

"Woulez wous danser, mademoiselle?" -Merrily moves the dance along; -Said she, "Sir, to dance I should like very well,"My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.

They danc'd to the left, and they danc'd to the right, -Merrily moves the dance along; -And her troth the fair damsel bestow'd on the knight,My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.

"Now what shall I fetch you, mademoiselle?" -Merrily moves the dance along; -Said she, "Sir, an ice I should like very well,"My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.

But the ice, when he'd got it, he instantly ate, -Merrily moves the dance along; -Although his poor partner was all in a fret,My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.

He ate up the ice like a prudent young lord, -Merrily moves the dance along; -For he saw 't was the very last ice on the board, -My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.

"Now, when shall we marry?" the gentleman cried; -Merrily moves the dance along; -"Sir, get you to Jordan," the damsel replied,My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.

"I never will wed with the pitiful elf" -Merrily moves the dance along -"Who ate up the ice which I wanted myself,"My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.

"I'd pardon your backing from red Waterloo," -Merrily moves the dance along -"But I never will wed with a coward and screw,"My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.

CHAPTER XLIII

The Church.

The next morning I began to think of departing; I had sewed up themoney which I had received for the horse in a portion of myclothing, where I entertained no fears for its safety, with theexception of a small sum in notes, gold, and silver, which Icarried in my pocket. Ere departing, however, I determined tostroll about and examine the town, and observe more particularlythe humours of the fair than I had hitherto an opportunity ofdoing. The town, when I examined it, offered no object worthy ofattention but its church--an edifice of some antiquity; under theguidance of an old man, who officiated as sexton, I inspected itsinterior attentively, occasionally conversing with my guide, who,however, seemed much more disposed to talk about horses than thechurch. "No good horses in the fair this time, measter," said he;"none but one brought hither by a chap whom nobody knows, andbought by a foreigneering man, who came here with Jack Dale. Thehorse fetched a good swinging price, which is said, however, to bemuch less than its worth; for the horse is a regular clipper; notsuch a one, 'tis said, has been seen in the fair for severalsummers. Lord Whitefeather says that he believes the fellow whobrought him to be a highwayman, and talks of having him taken up,but Lord Whitefeather is only in a rage because he could not gethim for himself. The chap would not sell it to un; Lord Screwwanted to beat him down, and the chap took huff, said he wouldn'tsell it to him at no price, and accepted the offer of theforeigneering man, or of Jack, who was his 'terpreter, and whoscorned to higgle about such a hanimal, because Jack is agentleman, though bred a dickey-boy, whilst t'other, though bred alord, is a screw and a whitefeather. Every one says the cove wasright, and I says so too; I likes spirit, and if the cove werehere, and in your place, measter, I would invite him to drink apint of beer. Good horses are scarce now, measter, ay, and so aregood men, quite a different set from what there were when I wasyoung; that was the time for men and horses. Lord bless you, Iknow all the breeders about here; they are not a bad set, and theybreed a very fairish set of horses, but they are not like whattheir fathers were, nor are their horses like their fathers'horses. Now there is Mr.--the great breeder, a very fairish man,with very fairish horses; but, Lord bless you, he's nothing to whathis father was, nor his steeds to his father's; I ought to know,for I was at the school here with his father, and afterwards formany a year helped him to get up his horses; that was when I wasyoung, measter--those were the days. You look at that monument,measter," said he, as I stopped and looked attentively at amonument on the southern side of the church near the altar; "thatwas put up for a rector of this church, who lived a long time ago,in Oliver's time, and was ill-treated and imprisoned by Oliver andhis men; you will see all about it on the monument. There was agrand battle fought nigh this place, between Oliver's men and theRoyal party, and the Royal party had the worst of it, as I'm toldthey generally had; and Oliver's men came into the town, and did agreat deal of damage, and ill-treated the people. I can't rememberanything about the matter myself, for it happened just one hundredyears before I was born, but my father was acquainted with an oldcountryman, who lived not many miles from here, who said heremembered perfectly well the day of the battle; that he was a boyat the time, and was working in a field near the place where thebattle was fought; and heard shouting, and noise of firearms, andalso the sound of several balls, which fell in the field near him.Come this way, measter, and I will show you some remains of thatday's field." Leaving the monument, on which was inscribed anaccount of the life and sufferings of the Royalist Rector ofHorncastle, I followed the sexton to the western end of the church,where, hanging against the wall, were a number of scythes stuck inthe ends of poles. "Those are the weapons, measter," said thesexton, "which the great people put into the hands of the countryfolks, in order that they might use them against Oliver's men; uglyweapons enough; however, Oliver's men won, and Sir Jacob Ashley andhis party were beat. And a rare time Oliver and his men had of it,till Oliver died, when the other party got the better, not byfighting, 'tis said, but through a General Monk, who turned sides.Ah, the old fellow that my father knew, said he well remembered thetime when General Monk went over and proclaimed Charles the Second.Bonfires were lighted everywhere, oxen roasted, and beer drunk bypailfuls; the country folks were drunk with joy, and somethingelse; sung scurvy songs about Oliver to the tune of Barney Banks,and pelted his men, wherever they found them, with stones anddirt." "The more ungrateful scoundrels they," said I. "Oliver andhis men fought the battle of English independence against awretched king and corrupt lords. Had I been living at the time, Ishould have been proud to be a trooper of Oliver." "You would,measter, would you? Well, I never quarrels with the opinions ofpeople who come to look at the church, and certainly independenceis a fine thing. I like to see a chap of an independent spirit,and if I were now to see the cove that refused to sell his horse tomy Lord Screw and Whitefeather, and let Jack Dale have him, I wouldoffer to treat him to a pint of beer--e'es, I would, verily. Well,measter, you have now seen the church, and all there's in it worthseeing--so I'll just lock up, and go and finish digging the grave Iwas about when you came, after which I must go into the fair to seehow matters are going on. Thank ye, measter," said he, as I putsomething into his hand; "thank ye kindly; 'tis not every one whogives me a shilling now-a-days who comes to see the church, buttimes are very different from what they were when I was young; Iwas not sexton then, but something better; helped Mr.--with hishorses, and got many a broad crown. Those were the days, measter,both for men and horses--and I say, measter, if men and horses wereso much better when I was young than they are now, what, I wonder,must they have been in the time of Oliver and his men?"